Unless your organization uses roaming user profiles, the
computer that a person uses probably has important data stored
locally. Migrating users from the Windows XP or Windows Vista
operating systems to Windows 7, or even migrating them from one
computer running Windows 7 to another, means that you must get all
important data from one local computer to the next. You can view user
profile data by opening the System item within Control Panel and then
opening the User Profiles area of the Advanced tab, as shown in Figure 1. You can use this tool to copy user
profile data to another location, but you cannot use this tool to
import user profile data.
More Info
CUSTOMIZING USER
PROFILES
To learn more about customizing user profiles in Windows 7,
consult the following reference on the Microsoft Web site:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/973289.
When you are considering the migration of a large number of
users from one platform to another, you must address the following
factors:
-
Choosing what type of migration you will perform. Will you
be migrating users to new computers, a task known as PC
replacement, or will you be upgrading their current computers, a
task known as a PC refresh?
-
Choosing where migrated data will be stored during the
migration. If you are moving a large number of users, you may need
to use a network migration store. This can cause problems if you
are not careful about cataloging the location of each migrated
user profile store.
-
Choosing an appropriate migration tool. In small migrations,
you may choose to use Windows Easy Transfer, a tool built into the
Windows 7 operating system. In larger migrations, you are more
likely to choose the User State Migration Tool, a tool available
as a free download from Microsoft.
If you are moving users of a small number of computers, you
should consider using Windows Easy Transfer rather than other tools.
Windows Easy Transfer is a utility built into the Windows 7 operating
system that allows you to move user profile data from one location to
another. The tool is wizard driven, which simplifies use and allows
migration of the most common user profile components. You can use
Windows Easy Transfer to migrate user profile data from computers
running the Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7 operating system
to computers running the Windows 7 operating system. The drawback of
Windows Easy Transfer is that you cannot automate the utility, which
makes migrating user profile data for a large number of computers
prohibitively time consuming.
Choosing a Migration Type
The nature of your task influences the migration type
you ought to choose. Depending on whether you are migrating user
profile data because you are replacing an existing computer’s
operating system or because you are moving a user from one computer
to another, one type is more suitable than another. These are the
two basic types of migration:
-
Wipe-and-load
migration. This is appropriate when the current hardware can
support a new operating system. Sometimes people refer to this
as a PC Refresh scenario. For example, you are deploying the
Windows 7 operating system to a group of users whose computers
are presently running the Windows XP operating system. In most
cases with a wipe-and-load migration, you move user data,
format the hard disk drive, and then perform a clean
installation of the new operating system, importing the new
data after the clean installation completes. You can use the
local hard disk as a migration store in a wipe-and-load
migration. You can keep the data on the computer during the
migration or use a remote store, such as a network location or
a removable storage device.
-
Side-by-side
migration. This is appropriate when you are replacing the user’s
current computer with a new computer. People also refer to
this type of migration as a PC Replacement scenario. For this
type, you need to use an intermediate store for the migrated
data that is accessible to both the current and replacement
computer. This intermediate store might be a network location
or could be a removable storage device.
You can perform an upgrade only when users already have
Windows Vista installed on their original computer. Upgrades are
possible only across versions of the operating system that support
the same processor architecture. For example, you can upgrade an x86
version of Windows Vista to an x86 version of Windows 7, but you
cannot upgrade an x86 version of Windows Vista to an x64 version of
Windows 7. To transition from an x86 to an x64 edition requires that
you perform a migration rather than an upgrade.
